Bibliographies, and Biographies and Directories

When I started this module this week I had one question in my mind. How can I use or how would I use bibliographies, and biographies and directories with my elementary aged students. What has become increasingly clear to me is the text Reference Skills has been written for Middle or Secondary Librarians. Don't get me wrong there is some great information on selecting reference materials for any library. However when it comes to the links they mainly are for Middle or Secondary students. While disappointing I have been searching out appropriate materials and websites that I can use with elementary school students.

So hence the reason why I started out reading with the questions in my mind. At first I was not sure what place bibliographs would have in a school library. How ever then began to think of a research project I had seen done with a grade 4 class when I was a practicum student. The classroom teacher had assigned the class a research project on famous Canadians, which is a perfect example of how biographies could be used. While I did not find the listings in the course module in particular useful I did find these sites that I would use with a class:

http://www.wsd1.org/robert_h/Cdnbiog.htm
Great gateway site to finding famous Canadians. This site lists links to sites to find what any student is looking for.

http://www.swlauriersb.qc.ca/english/edservices/pedresources/webquest/famous_canadians/index.html
A webquest where students have to act as a newspaper reporter find and research a famous Canadian.

http://schools.cbe.ab.ca/b261/famous_canadians/
A site developed by the Calgary Board of Education. Very user friendly and all the links are useable by elementary aged students.

As for Directories I have used them in the past with a grade 3 class. While studying mapping I showed my students that the front of the phonebook contains maps. Then I proceeded to show my students how they could find their houses and other places of interest in the community. I did a quick search online of kids directories and what I found was listings for search engines like Yahooligians.

There are resources out there to use with the youngest of learners it just takes time to search them out and find the appropriate learning situations to use them in.